Yet Another Little Toy

The toy series is a lot of fun. This little guy has been sitting on my desk for years and when the outside temperatures start the day at -16, I have to agree with him! He was sold by Avon maybe as long as 10 years ago. I can remember when Avon only sold cosmetics. Now you can get almost anything you want from your Avon representative. This little painting is about 6x9 and is done in pastel on gold pastel mat. Pastel Mat has become my favorite surface to work on. I painted him last night as a test of the possibility of teaching a lesson using Skype and a webcam. With a little tweaking, it will work quite nicely.

Another Daily Painting

Here is another little painting in the toy series. This goldfish was a big challenge with its plush face, organdy fins, and suedey body with sparklies. These little paintings are really good exercises and a lot of fun, too. He is about 6x9 in pastel on pastel mat.

Daily Painting

I try to work on a little something most week days and on weekends when I can. This little guy is one of my little daily paintings. He is about 5x5, pastel on sanded paper. He was a lot of fun.

A new week, a new project

Continuing my painting-a-day exercise, I was out running an errand this morning and found a little stuffed chick that chirps when you hold it in the palm of your hand. It was cheap and cute. The challenge was to turn something that is essentially a fuzzy yellow blob with beady black eyes, a plastic beak, and a plastic base with feet that houses the batteries into something that looks like more than just a blob. So today was all about texture. He is about 5x5 and is done in pastel on fine sanded paper.

Friday

The daily painting yesterday was a dud, so I didn't choose to post it. When you are doing a little something like this every day, you are bound to end up with a few stinkers along the way. Today, I went back to one of my favorite subjects--vessels. This is a little white pitcher that was in my cupboard. It is done on velour paper in pastel. The size is about 7x9. The pitcher was sitting on my kitchen table and there are two windows in the room. This is why you see light falling on both sides of the pitcher.

Wednesday's work

While watching the snow fall steadily all day, I needed something to remind me of spring and summer. I found a photo that I took at a farmer's market and I cropped it down to just one element. Today's painting is a basket of turnips. This is pastel on sanded paper. It is a little larger than usual at 9x12.

Tuesday's Painting

I was away over the weekend teaching at a retreat in Ohio, so my daily painting got interrupted. Today I did a pastel painting of a small glass paperweight with a plant and goldfish blown inside. This is pastel on pastel board, 5x7.

Wednesday's experiment

My painting for today is an experiment. I used suede mat board as my surface. The suede mat board is interesting to work on. It certainly holds the pastel, but it is far more difficult to blend. I don't know how often I might choose this surface. This piece is also a little larger. It is about 7x8. Because it is harder to blend, the whole piece seems a little rougher than most and the nap of the suede makes it look all soft-focus. It's nice to know that it can be used and it might be really wonderful for the right subject.

Tuesday's effort

Today my time has been very limited. I started this little piece before my student arrived and finished it after she left. The little clay urn is unglazed and has a lot of clay/mud adhered to it. It is an item that we brought back from Central America and stands about 5-inches high. It is very rustic. The little painting is about 4x6 and is done in pastel on sanded paper.

A new week, a new challenge

My Painting-a -Day personal challenge continues. I have started this week with a little silver teapot. This is pastel on 5x7 sanded paper. Sanded paper is really like very, very fine sandpaper. It is an interesting surface to work on. So far, I think my favorite surface is the pastel board, though.

Friday's painting

Here is my painting for today. This is pastel on 5x7 pastel board. I was working from a photo that my husband took somewhere a few years ago.

Wednesday--reclaiming a piece gone wrong

My painting for today almost ended up in the waste basket! I started this piece in colored pencil on a 4x4 piece of Ampersand Clay Board. Remember, part of the exercise is to try new products, techniques, and ideas. I don't like working on board with pencils. It has so much texture that it wears the pencils down very quickly, it takes a very long time to fill the texture so that you get a finished-looking piece. I was very unhappy with the results I was getting after about 40 minutes of working mostly on filling in background. At that point, I almost threw in the towel and threw out the piece. So, I walked away and thought about it for a while. I decided to try overlaying the colored pencil with pastels. In the end, I had a piece that is worth keeping. This is one seagull from a photo of a flock of seagulls that I am planning to use for a large pastel painting. I used my Pan Pastels to lay in the sky. Then I went to my soft pastels and worked on the gull. I used Conte pencils for some of the details, but they were not very effective over the colored pencil.

The exercise continues

Here is my daily painting for today, Tuesday. It is 4.5x6 on Mi-Teintes paper painted in pastels.

Monday painting

Today's painting is a little 3x5 pastel on board of iris. I was experimenting with the Pan Pastels on the background. They are very nice and blend easily to create nice color mixes and lay down in a very smooth application.

Friday's Challenge

Today I challenged myself to take a single sketch and make two different small paintings from it. I did the sketch during a meeting I was attending yesterday afternoon. There was a plant in the lobby that I could see from the meeting room and I roughly sketched it in my notes. One version of the branch is primarily a cool palette with warm yellow-green accents. The surface is a 4x5 Masonite board that I apparently painted with a base coat of green acrylic paint a while ago.

The second version is a primarily warm palette and is painted on a 3x5 fine-grained canvas attached to a board. The warmer version is more vibrant and exciting. The smaller board forced a different placement of the subject and the result was a more interesting design as well.

I didn't like working on the acrylic base. It was grainy but the texture was uneven and it was difficult to apply the pastel the way I wanted. It would not be my first choice for a surface. The canvas was not bad to work on but would take a bit of getting used to.